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Tour de France Tour de France 2022 route rumors thread.

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What I do like though is it doesnt seem too sprinter heavy which I like. I would have loved to see some longer mountain stages though, at least just one real crazy stage. Imagine Croix de Fer before Galibier towards Granon, that woulda looked nice wouldnt it lads.

But oh well. But Ill be there on the first three days!! Hopefully I can get some interviews as well, preferably one with my man Alejandro, but I doubt he will be turning up...
Valverde will forget he didn't wanna go to the Tour by April then by stage 2 he'll forget he didn't wanna go for GC probably
 
I think both the Cobbles and the Gravel are overblown when it comes to crashes in GT’s.
I don’t think of the Cobbles cause more crashes than gravel, regular tarmac causes more issues.
There have been two sterrato stages in the Giro the last decade or so. And there have been 3 or 4 cobbles stages in the Tour? That should enough to make an assessment. Anyone with a better memory than me who can do this? @Libertine Seguros ?
 
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not anywhere near enough ITT.

particularly with five summit finishes.

In 1976, one of the most mountainous TDFs with also five MTFs, there was 90kms of ITT and yet still a small climber (albeit one who could also TT fairly well) won...

and make the stages longer. isn't a GT supposed to be a test of endurance and recovery? or should we just let them go at the bottom of a climb and wait for one rider to sprint the last few hundred meters to create a few seconds gap (supplemented by bonuses)?

hoping pog or rog find a way still to destroy the one-dimensional petite climbers...
 
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Notice the expression of Alaphilipe face when Pogačar told him what lay ahead:

65932238.jpg


Cavendish still computing. But where will i sprint? Just give the green to van Aert.


On a more serious note Tour 2022 looks good to me. There is potential for greatness involved. Hopefully that potential won't lose the teeth in cobbles. Fingers crossed that Tour 2022 will deliver!
 
i like the route a lot, but i actually prefer to see the traditional classic finishes in the tour, like alpe d'huez, hautacam and mende.

the only thing that sucks is the lengths of the mountain stages as usual, which could be fixed simply by making the peyregudes stage a 200+ km monster, which would serve the purpose of making the next days final mountain stage even harder. also maybe add another climb in the foix stage, but the peguere has delivered the last couple of times they've used it.
 
The most important part of any route in my opinion is this--- will the winner of this route have to be an all rounder? If the answer is yes (and it isn't always yes, hello Tour with only 27K of total ITT), then the route is good enough. Do things like exciting weekend stages, novel new mountain passes, long-grueling mountain stages, scenic passes along the ocean for the TV, etc matter? Of course, but those are all secondary to crafting a fair, well-rounded route. This is perhaps the most fair, most well-rounded route in years so I am pleased with it.

A few personal notes
1) I love finishes like the ones in Longwy, Lausanne, Chatel, Megeve and Mende. Are they the most exciting? No but they're great for people who want to attend the race in person without having to rent a camper and sleep by the side of the road a few days out. In all those case if you've been following the route rumors it's been pretty easy to find a hotel within walking distance (2 hrs or less) of the stage finish while still getting the experience of seeing an uphill finish with the riders coming in to the finale in different groups.

2) I don't miss the downhill finishes, they terrified me and not in a good way.

3) I do miss the South of France, hopefully we'll get a post-pandemic trip to Nice sometime soon.
 
On a scale between 1 and 10 on the "this is good for Roglic" rating, I'd rate this as a 9. It plays to his strengths (shorter, super hard mountain stages with summit finishes like in the Vuelta) and doesn't feature the one area where he constantly loses his power & recuperation: 200km+ hard stages which aren't his forte. If this was a Vuelta profile, the consensus would be "this is good for Rogla", with the one question mark being the cobbles. But, he's properly raced on cobbles before (Tour 2018) & isn't bad on dirt roads either.

Short length of mountain stages stands out indeed and it's a good route for Roglic (well, almost any is). It's not like previous two Tour editions had long mountain stages though. And those consecutive stages packed with climbs will take their toll. May the best man win!
 
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The most important part of any route in my opinion is this--- will the winner of this route have to be an all rounder? If the answer is yes (and it isn't always yes, hello Tour with only 27K of total ITT), then the route is good enough. Do things like exciting weekend stages, novel new mountain passes, long-grueling mountain stages, scenic passes along the ocean for the TV, etc matter? Of course, but those are all secondary to crafting a fair, well-rounded route. This is perhaps the most fair, most well-rounded route in years so I am pleased with it.

yup.

still would prefer another 40-60kms of ITT and some longer flat stages to wear out all those petite climbers that are the fad of modern cycling. have the Bernals, the Yateses, and the Carapazes picking up the scraps competing for polka dots. let the real (men) all-rounders fight it out for yellow.

:)
 
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yup.

still would prefer another 40-60kms of ITT and some longer flat stages to wear out all those petite climbers that are the fad of modern cycling. have the Bernals, the Yateses, and the Carapazes picking up the scraps competing for polka dots. let the real (men) all-rounders fight it out for yellow.

:)

The Yates brothers are yet to prove they can maintain their peak w/kg for 3-weeks instead of one day/one week. This is a good route for Bernal indeed but it will be extremely difficult for him to get any significant gap on the Slovenians before the final ITT. Under normal circumstances (if both of them take part and avoid crashes) their win is over 90% likely.
 
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There have been two sterrato stages in the Giro the last decade or so. And there have been 3 or 4 cobbles stages in the Tour? That should enough to make an assessment. Anyone with a better memory than me who can do this? @Libertine Seguros ?
In my memory, a lot of the high-profile GC crashes on sterrato/cobbles stages were on the asphalt - Nibali in the 2010 Giro, Froome in the 2014 Tour, Porte in the 2018 Tour. There was the Fränk Schleck crash in the 2010 Tour but it's kind of the exception.
 
The Yates brothers are yet to prove they can maintain their peak w/kg for 3-weeks instead of one day/one week. This is a good route for Bernal indeed but it will be extremely difficult for him to get any gap on the Slovenians before the final ITT. Under normal circumstances (if both of them take part and avoid crashes) their win is over 90% likely.

How is this a good route for Bernal? It's an awful route for Bernal. The only chance he might have against Pogacar and Roglic are really tough mountain stages with multiple mountains, climbing, climbing, climbing and altitude, and the least amount of time trialing possible. It might turn out they actually crack. I hope the best for Bernal, but I can't see it, unless they crash and he doesn't. Not even sure he's going to do the Tour with this route.
 
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How is this a good route for Bernal? It's an awful route for Bernal. The only chance he might have against Pogacar and Roglic are really tough mountain stages with multiple mountains, climbing, climbing, climbing and altitude, and the least amount of time trialing possible. It might turn out they actually crack. I hope the best for Bernal, but I can't see it, unless they crash and he doesn't. Not even sure he's going to do the Tour with this route.

A route with 5 MTFs and a lot of mountains is not awful for Bernal lol. Two Alpine stages have plenty of altitude, two Galibier climbs, a monster MTF at 2400 m. It almost can't be any higher than that. He can be close to the leader until the last ITT (when he'll likely lose big time but who doesn't lose to the Slovenians?).
 
A route with 5 MTFs and a lot of mountains is not awful for Bernal lol. Two Alpine stages have plenty of altitude, two Galibier climbs, a monster MTF at 2400 m. It almost can't be any higher than that. He can be close to the leader until the last ITT (when he'll likely lose but who doesn't lose to the Slovenians?).

I think this kind of mountain stage and finish will suit Pogacar and Roglic much better.
 
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A route with 5 MTFs and a lot of mountains is not awful for Bernal lol. Two Alpine stages have plenty of altitude, two Galibier climbs, a monster MTF at 2400 m. It almost can't be any higher than that. He can be close to the leader until the last ITT (when he'll likely lose big time but who doesn't lose to the Slovenians?).
Every route is awful to bernal if he faces the slovenians, because they are better than him in the itts,mountains,cobbles, steep finishes like mende....everything.
 
If Galibier + Granon suit the Slovenians better than Bernal then there's no stage profile that suits him better than them.
Then again, it's not surprising that almost any route favours them over the rest.

True, it's not easy to imagine a route that would favour him over them. But I think most of these stages are the type of stage and finish we have already seen them to be better. There is a chance that if you had more really hard multiple mountain stages and more descending he would be better - I still don't think he'd be, but there would be a chance. Instead the flat sections leading up to most of the climbing will probably already take out a lot of him, and then on the climbs themselves it will be a waiting game until the end, I don't see much possibilities to sneak away there, and Pogacar and Roglic will usually outsprint everybody at the end.
 
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If Galibier + Granon suit the Slovenians better than Bernal then there's no stage profile that suits him better than them.
Then again, it's not surprising that almost any route favours them over the rest.

Bernal isn't at the level of Pog & Rog.

He isn't a better climber than them either, whether at altitude or not. But it's not just about Bernal, i.e. for decades we've seen the same circular conversations (as we can see in the media & social media right now) about "pure climbers" supposedly taking time off the all rounders in the mountains before a TT in the Tour. But the reality is much different. Climbers ("pure" or otherwise) by & large will only take time if the yellow jersey allows it, not because he's literally "in difficulty".

I will eat my hat if Bernal or another climber (who isn't called Roglic) drops Pogacar in the mountains in the Tour next year a la pédale (which can be translated as "based on worth") & not due to some sort of tactical coup or incident.
 
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